Oh, how I love you people (in as grabby or non-grabby a way as you prefer).

I'm a cheerful introvert, partially due to nature and partially due to nurture. My sister and mother are both incredible extroverts who have the most incredibly mad flirting skills, so anytime I'd be around them, I'd fade into the wallpaper. No one ever noticed me when they were around. It's still true. I'll hang back and not ever introduce myself and just wait to be introduced, if I'm even remembered, because I figure if I was inherently interesting, then I'd be noticed. (Stoopit brayne.)

However, conversely, I can be rather social, I can function in large groups where I know people or where I have a reason to be there. (My idea of torture, however, is ask me to go into a room where I know no one and feel as if I have no reason to be there, and ask me to introduce myself to people. Just hand over the bamboo shoots and let me be done with it.)

Much as I can love the energy of a large group, though, it is exhausting and I'm often grateful to crawl back to my cave. And then I toss and turn and worry that I was stupid.

All things considered, I probably have the perfect temperament for a writer.

Tom! We love you when you have to leave too, you know! It doesn't switch off.

I can turn off a crowd with the greatest of ease. I can be alone anywhere. My sister had the obnoxious idea that she was going to force switched seating at her wedding reception, and fuck her, I just won't go. I love the look you got when she suggested that, Scola, like she was a mutant freak. Because she was. Her intent is to seat you with people you know for most of the reception, but force you to sit with someone new for at least part of that.

Sure, but I won't talk to them if I don't want to. I only feel mildly bad about that. I can talk to anyone, but I don't always have the energy.

when I can't cope with people who I love, because it makes me feel guilty and like a big jackass buzzkill party pooper.

I feel so badly about this (and yes, I get that it isn't about me), because you (and everyone else who's mentioned this) is so awesome.

Would it help to think that you are making the crazy people happy by stepping back and being comfortable? Or am I being an condescending jackass?

You're not being condescending or a jackass. Not at all. But when I try to think things like this -- "They would WANT to know that they're freaking me out with their grabby hands" -- then I think, "Oh my god, who the HELL do I think I am to have ANY right to deprive them of what they want to do, even if it's something that makes me lose my mind?"**

I am not remotely kidding. I'm much better at having and enforcing boundaries than I used to be, and the fact that I still think things like in the above paragraph should give you an idea of just how crap my boundaries were *before* I improved them.

**(And I even do this with Tim, in...intimate situations. I think, "He would want to know that that hurts like fire and is in no way fun for me," but that's immediately followed with "Who the HELL do I think I am to deny him the enjoyment of what he wants to do???"

And, oh yeah, I *know* that's EXTREMELY messed up. I'm on board with that.)

Is anyone inherently interesting? I think some of you have your bars set too high. And Tep, that's not an invitation.(Yet, anyway) Most people are schmucks in one way or another. Why aren't you more worried *they're* boring? Of course, I live *here*, so it's easy to keep "fucking hoople," as a sort of default(left untreated, however, this can lead to Olbermann Syndrome--consult your healthcare professional)

I specifically design my shields to not block awareness of others' negative feelings, but merely to prevent me from absorbing them.

I truly adore you, Andi.

I was pretty shocked to discover that I am not a gregarious person. I am an unrepentant street-greeter, I love chatting with strangers, I really enjoy having one or two people over for British tv and noshes...but once I have expended my social resources, lordy, I MUST be alone. When I am down or ill, I can't bear having others around. In fact, there are entire days when I speak to no one but Bartleby and I'm totally okay with that.

The idea of setting aside what you want in favor of taking care of others featured in the article I linked to in Press yesterday. It's amazingly common. So much as to be 'normal.'

It impacted me on a very deep level when my ex-husband and I were going through mediation in or divorce process. We'd been together for 10 years and, at this point, revealed things he really wanted, even needed, from me that I had zero clue about. Had I known, our lives would have been very different. I don't know exactly how, but NOT having that information made me feel impotent and, in some ways, cheated.

Ironically, as my mouth fell open and he realized how hurt I was by not being given the chance to be real with him, he blurted out that he just wanted me to be happy. Sadly, that was a key tactical error.

Boring people don't bug, but stupid and/or mean will have me hiding from them all night.

then I think, "Oh my god, who the HELL do I think I am to have ANY right to deprive them of what they want to do, even if it's something that makes me lose my mind?"**

that's immediately followed with "Who the HELL do I think I am to deny him the enjoyment of what he wants to do???"

Answer: Someone who has just as much right to enjoyment.

There may be better and worse ways to express your wishes, but that's the bottom line -- you have just as much right to enjoy the situation as anyone else present.

I do this! I am insanely social. I like to make sure everyone has met each other and knows each others' interests, stuff they have in common. I will talk to pretty much anyone about anything, invite random people to sit with me or a group I'm with.

And yet, I almost never call anyone to make plans with me because I think they have better things to do, or that they really don't want to hang out, but are just pitying me and being nice.

Hello, this is me. DJ, you want to hang out?

You don't really mean that do you...

See this is probably why we did so well together. Well, that and the Chartreuse.

Hi Juliana! I emailed you...to do stuff...;)

But seriously, I'm an extrovert and even I am with some regularity in the midst of a party or bar thinking "why is everyone else having more fun? They're talking to each other cause they like each other more than me. I don't belong here and Clearly am ridiculous and awkward and making a fool of myself and they only pity me". And then I end up making out with people. What can I say?